


I'm Not Doing This

by InesStarkDowney



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, The Avengers Are Good Bros, The Avengers care about Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 13:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10720251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InesStarkDowney/pseuds/InesStarkDowney
Summary: This was some sort of intervention Tony was totally not on board for. He didn't need an intervention, okay? Tony was at the peak of his age, he wasn't drinking, he wasn't getting himself in danger like the good old days when the best thing for the world was for Tony to go through a wormhole and die in space, he wasn't even having awful, anxiety starter nightmares anymore!... Okay, that last one had to be checked, but Tony was fine!"For Fuck's sake, Stark. You have been making eyes at Steve for months, since we came back home, even through all of the fighting and I can't even imagine what it was like before the whole Accords deal!" Bucky sat on the couch in Tony's room, obviously very out of patience.Oh... Right. Steve. Yeah, that needed intervention.





	I'm Not Doing This

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this. It was the first thing I wrote in 2017, exactly on the 1st of January. Now looking back at it, I still smile a lot when reading it.
> 
> I hope you do too!

"I'm not doing this!"

Tony crossed his arms in defense, as he leaned against the wall of his bedroom. He wished he could escape, run away to his safe haven, his workshop where the only bother was Dum-e and his constant need to shove a rather doubtful milkshake into Tony's face. But he couldn't, because, apparently, his friends decided to do an intervention of some sorts. Intervention, since when did he needed an intervention?

Tony was at the peak of his age, he wasn't drinking, he wasn't getting himself in danger like the good old days when the best thing for the world was for Tony to go through a wormhole and die in space, he wasn't even having those awful, anxiety starter nightmares anymore! Okay... Maybe sometimes they plagued him after a really bad mission, when someone on the team got hurt and it wasn't just a scratch, so Tony's mind had to overthink it, draw every possibility of one day being more than an injury. But dreams were dreams, and Tony didn't have those dark eye bags under his eyes anymore, he had a schedule suited for him, he even slept eight hours at night. Tony was good, Tony was great. Interventions where made for people who-

"For fuck's sake, Stark. You have been making eyes at Steve for months, since we came back home, even through all the fighting, and I can't even imagine what it was all like before the whole Accords deal!" Bucky sat on the couch in Tony's room, obviously very out of patience.

Yeah, okay, maybe, maybe Tony needed some intervention in that aspect. Then, to be honest, he needed this intervention since he was a horny teenager boy with Captain America posters everywhere in his room. Let's just say that Steve was a sore subject. Steve was... Steve, a very complicated thing that almost, almost came to be more than a friend and teammate, and then, boom... It all exploded in their faces, more specifically in Tony's face.

But they were good again and Tony couldn't deny that they had gone back to that game of theirs where there were lingering touches and those sneaky looks over each other, not to mention the small talk that lasted, sometimes, till late at night and turned into deep conversations about things they only let out to each other. So what if Tony loved Steve? He had learnt to live like this, at one arm length, watching Steve live his life. Now, because of this, Tony was entirely entitled to look at Steve however he wanted, whether he looked like a teenage fool. They didn't work together, life decided to warn them before and if a war is not proof enough, then...

"Look, so what if I do that? It's none of your goddamn business."

"Uh, it actually is when I know that my best friend also does the same and that you two could actually do something and get this torture over with it! So, please, for the love you have for this team, ask Steve out."

After the first part of Bucky's speech, when he mentioned the very likelihood of Steve feeling the same for Tony, Tony just stopped listening at stared at Bucky like he was looking at Dum-e doing something good for the first time ever.

"Uh... What?"

"You heard me very well, Stark. Stop making this harder than it is."

"Yeah, no, that's impossible. Steve feeling the same for me? No way in hell. You know why? Cause he is Steve Fucking Rogers. We don't get along like that and all that we do, whatever it is that we do, it's because we are friends and he is nice and kind and actually very touch starved like everyone on this fucking team, by the way."

"Oh my god, could you be blinder, Tony?" Now Tony felt out of this goddamn world, back in space, looking at the unknown and hearing things that cannot be real, because his Rhodey, his honeybear, love of his life, the truest friend he had, was in front of him, holding his shoulders and shaking him, asking him to wake the fuck up. Even Rhodey was all up in this nonsense. It was nonsense, it had to be. "Wake up, please. Steve looks at you like you put the stars in the sky. Literally. If we told him that he would believe it and just fall even more in love with you."

"Listen to Bucky, who is Steve's best friend and knows him better than anyone, and listen to your goddamn best friend who observes Steve like an eagle afraid that he will hurt you again, man." Clint looked at Tony very serious. Wow, Clint could look serious, this was news to him. But, seriously, even Clint? This was really an intervention and Tony just felt the need to run more and more. His own bedroom felt tinier with all his friends inside, trying to tell him to do something, take the first step towards Steve, because Steve loves Tony.

Tony wanted to run because this was a cruel joke. Love shouldn't happen in circumstances like this, when they loved like never before but were meant to fall apart. Tony didn't want to crash and burn with Steve, Tony didn't want an ending with Steve.

"Look, so what if you are right and Steve lo- feels the same about me? It doesn't mean anything, okay? Have you witnessed what happened in the past? We barely got along, and even when we did, we fought so much, and we still do. Then the war happened, and if you don't see that as proof that we shouldn't be together, I don't know what will. Wait, I know! The end of the world. Because that almost happened as well. All I had to see was Steve dying in my dreams and i built a murder bot. I think it's obvious that together, in whatever way, we are a time bomb. I am a time bomb, and all he needs to do is light the fuse and... Bad things can happen. Not to the world. But to ourselves, and i don't want to see him burn. I think we had enough hard times in the past."

Tony stared into their eyes, all of them, so they could understand the words he said. He knew they wanted the best thing for him and Steve, he knew. They were family and they always did everything to make each other happy. But Tony was in this too; Tony saw too much, Tony felt too much, just because of Steve and what they had. Tony knew stuff when it came to this. He wasn't always right, but when it came to this he was certain of it, no matter how much he wished to be wrong.

Natasha walked up to him, being quiet all this time, just looking and evaluating everything with her Green sharp eyes as usual. And Tony stared, tired, because this was just a repetition of a fight he had had with himself over the years.

"You're not that bad, you know that, Tony. You know you can both be good for each other. You already are. I see that every day, we see that every day."

"Nat-"

"No, you are gonna listen to me. Look at you now. You are in good health, because Steve always walked after you begging you to take care of yourself and when you couldn't do that, he did it. You sleep every night in your bed, there are no more sleepless nights in the workshop, because he used to go and pick you up, lie you down on the bed and stay there with you till you fell asleep. You talk openly with him, you don't keep the bad inside anymore, you don't have to carry it alone anymore because he was there, and he made us see that we could be there too. And he is not the only one who does good. You do it, too. You gave him a home, in the midst of the hardest time of his life; you have him somewhere to come back to when he couldn't handle it anymore. You have him somewhere to belong to. You gave him a family; you gave him the good times he lacked for so long. Did you know his first real smile came because of you? Did you know he laughed and laughed for the first time because of you? Did you know that he finally accepted himself, his past and his current life because of you? You made him turn out to be okay. It was you. You already act like a couple, you are good for each other, and just because life caught up to you twice and made you break and fall doesn't mean your future is gonna crash and burn. Give it a shot, Tony. You might surprise yourself in the future when you look back and see what you achieved."

Natasha smiled at him, that little girl smile Tony had come to witness come out more often these days and he breathed out. Everyone looked at him, hoping, and Tony didn't know what to do. He couldn't deny what Natasha said, because it was like Black in white. And daring to question Natasha was a suicide mission only Barton ever took on.

"I... I don't know what to do."

"It's simple, Stark. You go out there and you ask him out.", Bucky said from his seat and the look on his face was different. He was encouraging Tony. _Do it. Do it and you won't regret it._

So Tony nodded and breathed in and out. Natasha stepped aside and Rhodey was the one who opened the door for Tony. Tony looked at all of them one last time and smiled.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank us yet, genius. Go and make that soldier happy."

Tony laughed at Clint but did exactly that.

Steve was in the living room according to FRIDAY, drawing as he whistled a song. Tony stood there unnoticed for a while, just enjoying it. Steve was happy, at peace at the moment. And Tony had the chance to make it better. Who would have guessed it: Tony was the key to Steve's happiness?

"Hey, Cap?"

Steve looked up from his notebook and as soon as he laid eyes on Tony a small smile crawled on the corners of his lips. Tony's heart skipped a beat. How could he have missed that before? It was... breath taking.

"Yes, Tony?"

"Would you like to have dinner with me, later?", Tony didn't wait and just went for it straight ahead. There was nothing stopping him from being upfront. For the first time, there were no obstacles.

"Oh?"

"As in a date."

" _Oh_!", The way that oh changed from one moment to another gave Tony even more hope, because that blush (He was certain it was a blush) was crawling Steve's neck pretty fast and, damn, if it wasn't the most irresistible thing he had ever seen. "Of course, Tony."

Tony smiled of relief, and God, did he feel like a teenager again. But when Steve smiled at him like he put the stars in the sky, Tony saw no harm in feeling like a teenager; in fact he saw every reason why he should feel like it. He was asking his first love out on a date.

"So, what are you drawing?"

Tony sat down next to Steve, like he had done many times before when he walked in and saw him drawing with so much concentration, and like before Steve talked him through it, with all his enthusiasm.

"It's from this morning's practice."

"Oh, it's Nat. Wow, she looks so flawless during that moment..."

Tony observed every smooth line on the paper: the flow of Natasha's short hair, the tenseness of her muscles, bright with sweater, and the swing of her leg in a motion kick. Tony felt like he was watching the scene all over again, so Tony smiled and looked up to Steve to congratulate him on his art, only to find Steve already looking at him, a small smile on his face.

Tony couldn't help the blush on his cheeks, but hopefully he managed to hide it pretty well. Come on, a forty year old man didn't blush, especially not because of another man looking at him with such adoration. But maybe he didn't hide it that well, because Steve's smile got bigger and he chuckled.

"You know, thank god, you asked me out now."

"Yeah? Why?"

"Because if you didn't, later tonight I would have done it myself. I Just... I was just done with waiting. I don't want to wait anymore when it comes to you. I think I had my fair share of waiting."

"Well, guess what? No need anymore. All yours, if you want me, Cap."

Both smiled that childish smile they got around each other, because right then they were young, young with so much to wait for in the future, except each other. That was over. _Finally._ Then Steve was leaning into Tony, pressing his lips against Tony's, without any hesitation, because Steve Rogers didn't hesitate. He acted. And Tony didn't take one second to respond and melt against Steve's lips, thinking he had done the best thing ever by taking his shot. Whatever came in the future was worth it, no matter what. It was Steve, after all.


End file.
